The Lying Game (19 page)

“You okay?” Garrett asked.

Emma nodded. “Yeah. I’m just tired.”

“Fun sleepover last night?”

Emma paused. “Actually,
sleep
over is inaccurate. I didn’t get any.”

“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”

Emma fiddled with Sutton’s locket, saying nothing. It still felt foreign around her neck.

“C’mon.” Garrett poked her side. “You can tell me what happens at your crazy sleepovers. I wish you told me more.”

Emma reached for another cracker, suddenly getting an idea. Actually, Garrett might be useful to this investigation after all.

“Well, I’m not sure ‘fun’ is the word I’d use,” she said slowly. “More like … intense. Sometimes I think my friends hate me. I think they’d stab me in the back if they could.” It felt weird to recite the words she’d found in Sutton’s journal.

A couple of college kids smelling strongly of pot emerged from behind the curve. The air shifted and suddenly reeked of smelly armpit. Garrett bit down on a grape; some of the juice dribbled down his chin. “Are you talking about that night?”

Emma jolted up. “What night?”

Garrett slowly chewed a cracker. “The night you won’t tell me about?”

Emma’s eyes widened.
What did he mean?

“Or do you mean Charlotte?” Garrett asked when Emma didn’t answer.

Emma lowered her eyes.
Charlotte?
“Um, yeah,” she said, hoping this led somewhere. “I just don’t know what her problem is.”

Garrett pressed the edge of his sneaker into a scrubby patch of desert grass. “You’re going to have to give her some time, Sutton. Try to see it from her perspective. I dumped her … to go out with you. A lot of girls would have a tough time with that.”

Emma pushed another piece of Brie into her mouth to hide her shock. Charlotte and Garrett …
dated?
Shecertainly hadn’t learned anything like
that
from Sutton’s journal.

But it made sense. It explained the death stare Charlotte had given Emma last night when boyfriend-stealing came up in Never Have I Ever. There was that picture of Garrett’s naked torso hanging outside the shower in Charlotte’s bathroom, too. And the picture of him that had been abandoned under her bed.

“She’s clearly not over it,” Emma agreed. “Actually, I don’t think she’s over you.”

Garrett sighed and wrapped his arms around his knees. “I wish it never happened. I thought she understood my position. We were friends, and when we tried being more, there wasn’t any romance. I didn’t think she felt a spark either.” He broke off a piece of cracker and held it in his palm. “She’s actually called me a couple of times. Sometimes she just hangs up.”

Emma sat up straighter. “Like … prank calls?”

Garrett frowned. “I don’t think so. She just doesn’t know what to say. I feel bad for her. I mean, she’s so tough, but it’s got to be hard on her. And I still see her all the time with you. I want her to be my friend—I want
all
of us to be friends. Besides, Charlotte was there for me during everything that happened with Louisa.” His voice cracked on
Louisa.
A pained look crossed his face. “We share a lot of history together.”

The words rushed over Emma. She felt dazed as she tried to process all Garrett had said. Then he grabbed her hand. “I don’t want it to be anything
more
than that with her though. I’m with you now. I
want
to be with you.”

He moved a little closer to her and draped his arm around Emma’s shoulders. “That reminds me though … of what we talked about this summer. Our … plans?”

Emma searched his way-too-close face, trying hard not to pull away. Garrett looked so serious all of a sudden. “Uh-huh,” she lied, hoping he’d elaborate.

“Well, I was thinking of making that happen for your birthday.” He shot her a bashful smile as he traced a squiggle on her arm. “What do you think?”

Emma shrugged. “Um, sure,” she said.

Garrett snuggled toward her and leaned his face close to hers. Emma braced herself as he touched his lips to hers, but he tasted like sweet grapes and fizzy cider, and his lips felt warm and soft. She relaxed a tiny bit into the kiss.

A twig snapped close by. Emma pulled back and sat up straight, instantly on edge. “Did you hear that?”

There was another snapping sound. “Yeah.” Garrett frowned and looked around, too. Someone emerged from a dirt path off the main trail. It was a girl with pale skin and bright red hair. Emma drew in a breath.

“Oh! “ Charlotte stopped short and pulled a pair of iPod earbuds from her ears. Her gaze darted from Garrett to Emma, then to their entwined hands. What was Charlotte doing up here?
Had she been watching?

Garrett tugged nervously at the collar of his shirt. “Uh, hi, Char. What’s up?”

Charlotte fiddled with a rope bracelet around her wrist. “Oh, just getting a hike in.”

“Cool,” Garrett said.

“Nice night for it,” Emma added stupidly.

A hawk screamed ominously from a nearby ledge. When Charlotte raised her head again, her expression was placid. Her mouth no longer trembled. “Anyway,” she said. “See you lovebirds later.”

“L-Later,” Emma stammered.

Charlotte slipped the earbuds back in. Garrett waved weakly. Emma did, too. Just as Charlotte made the turn, darkness crept over her face. She glanced over her shoulder, and met Emma’s gaze.

All at once, Emma felt the hands at her neck and heard the raspy voice from last night in her ear.
Sutton’s dead.
Could it have been Charlotte?

I recalled the broad-shouldered shape standing over me in the trunk and wondered the same thing. Could it have been Charlotte staring angrily, finally getting her revenge?

Then Charlotte whipped her head around, red ponytail bouncing. She shook her hips to the song on her iPod. As she rounded the next rock, her footsteps didn’t make a sound, almost like she’d never been there at all.

On Tuesday afternoon, when Mr. Garrison the gym teacher dispatched the class to either take a walk or play floor hockey—
bleh
—Emma strode along the hedged-in path past the tennis courts toward the empty running track. The afternoon was breezy but warm, smelling faintly of ground coffee beans from the cafeteria’s espresso bar. Bits of dried grass turned tumbleweeds blew across the eight yellow-outlined lanes and nestled in the long jump pit. Red-and-white-striped hurdles were stacked neatly in the middle of the field, and an abandoned gray sweatshirt lay next to them, along with a half-drained bottle of Gatorade. The only sounds were the crows cawing in the far-off trees.

Emma pulled out Sutton’s iPhone and composed a text to Madeline:
SPA AFTER TENNIS PRACTICE?

She hit
SEND.
Emma had been dying to talk to Madeline alone ever since her strange encounter with Charlotte on the trail on Saturday, but Madeline had been at a ballet workshop in Phoenix all weekend. And Emma had just found out that Charlotte had a doctor’s appointment after tennis—"the gynecologist,” Charlotte had covertly whispered to Emma at lunch, giving her a loaded look—which meant Emma and Madeline could have some time alone.

She desperately needed to find out Charlotte’s state of mind. This weekend, she’d pored over Sutton’s journals, searching for clues about just how angry Charlotte was. But there was only the entry that said,
C has been so bitchy lately. She just needs to get over it.
And, of course,
Sometimes I think all my friends hate me. Every last one.
Was that enough? Perhaps Charlotte had been furious at Sutton for stealing Garrett away … angry enough to strangle her. Angry enough to kill her. It would’ve been easy for her to sneak downstairs in her own house, too, strangle Emma in the same way, and slip back upstairs unnoticed. Maybe there was a secret staircase in that crazy-big house.

Emma’s theory terrified me. How many times had I picked on Charlotte like I had at the hot springs? How many times did I put her down? Had stealing Garrett made her snap … or had it been something else?

“Sutton,” a voice called.

Emma turned to see a figure looming between the hedges. Whoever was there was backlit by the sun, and at first Emma couldn’t quite make out who it was. All kinds of things flashed through her mind in an instant. Her gut knotted with nerves.

Then Ethan stepped into the light. Emma’s muscles relaxed. “Hey,” Emma said gratefully. Ethan walked out to the track and fell into step with her. “I didn’t know you had gym right now.”

“I don’t,” Ethan said. “I’m supposed to be in calculus. But I’m so lost about functions it’s not even worth it to go.”

Their footsteps were nearly silent on the spongy all-weather track. The odor of bus exhaust wafted from the front of the school. A hummingbird darted to a tube-shaped feeder one of the groundskeepers had hung near the field house, its wings flapping lightning fast. “So did you do it?” Ethan asked after they’d made a lap. “Did you have a big no-more-pranks intervention with your friends?”

“Not exactly.” Emma attempted a laugh. “I’m still working on it.”

“Still think they’re evil?”

“Kinda.”
More than you know,
Emma wanted to say. Then her gaze fell to handwriting on Ethan’s arm:
HOWFRAIL THE HUMAN HEART MUST BE—A MIRRORED POOL OF
THOUGHT.
She recognized it instantly. “You like Sylvia Plath?”

A bloom of red appeared on Ethan’s cheeks. “You caught me. I read depressing girls’ poetry.”

“It’s better than
writing
depressing girls’ poetry.” Emma laughed. “I have a whole notebook full of it.” A notebook that was stuffed into the pocket of a missing duffel bag. Emma felt a longing pang. She’d probably never see it again. “Have you read
The Bell Jar?”
she asked Ethan.

He nodded. “Loved it.”

“I read it three times this summer,” Emma said excitedly.

“Sutton Mercer read
The Bell Jar?”
Ethan shot her a quick surprised look. “And has a notebook full of depressing poetry? You’re a complex creature.”

Mr. Garrison blew the whistle, signaling for Emma’s class to return to the gym. Emma turned back to the hedge-lined path. “See ya.” She smiled at Ethan, heat rising in her cheeks. She whirled around and crunched back to the gym door, a smile on her face.

Beep.

It was the iPhone. Emma pulled it out and checked the text.
I’D LOVE A SPA NITE,
Madeline wrote back.
LA PALOMA
AT 7?

SOUNDS GREAT,
Emma texted back. Maybe she’d finally start getting some answers.

“Miss Vega and Miss Mercer? “ A freshly scrubbed, freckled woman in a lab coat stood at the door of the La Paloma waiting area. “Your room is ready.”

“Sweet.” Madeline minimized the gossip site she and Emma had been perusing on her iPhone. They’d been playing “punch-drunk"—the object was to punch one another first whenever they saw a picture of a drunk-looking celebrity. Double punches if the celebrity had a boob hanging out.

The aesthetician, whose name tag said
SOFIA,
opened a glass door and let the girls pass into a long, narrow hall. A male spa worker walked toward them, giving Madeline and Emma an appreciative once-over. Madeline met his gaze and giggled. As he passed, she quickly slapped his butt. The guy swiveled around, but Madeline sauntered on, her long hair swishing.

Sofia opened yet another glass door and revealed a large porcelain tub. A soft yellow haze shone down from recessed lights in the ceiling. Rain forest noises played softly through the speakers. “I’ll let you get settled,” Sofia trilled, shutting the door.

Madeline instantly dropped her robe to the floor, adjusted the ties of her black string bikini, and climbedthe mini plastic stairs to enter the tub. “Coming in?” she called to Emma over her shoulder.

Emma undid the belt of her robe and carefully stepped into the tub. The mud was thick and grainy. It was like sitting in a big bowl of oatmeal. Madeline rested her head, a blissed-out expression on her face. Sofia appeared again and placed cucumber slices over the girls’ eyes. “Enjoy,” she lilted, turning down the lights, turning up the rain forest music, and shutting the door.

The mud tub burbled. Emma tried to enjoy the moment. The cucumber slices smelled fresh next to her nose, but the jungle music blared through the speakers so loudly that it was hard to relax. The sound of heavy rain morphed into tribal drums, followed by a buzzing insect. Birds tweeted and cawed. An African flute tooted. When a monkey let out a loud screech, Emma started to giggle. She heard a snort from across the tub and pulled the cucumbers from her eyes. Madeline’s lips were pressed tightly together, as if she were trying very hard not to laugh, which only made Emma’s shoulders shake harder. Then two monkeys started hooting together. Emma burst out laughing, and Madeline did, too. Emma covered her mouth, smearing mud all over her face. A cucumber fell from one of Madeline’s eyes and plopped into the murky liquid.

“Dude,” Madeline said between giggles. “I think the monkeys are doing it.”

“It’s definitely monkey mating calls,” Emma agreed, flicking a glop of mud at Madeline.

They settled back into the mud, every once in a while letting out another giggle or snort. Then Madeline took a long sip from the glass of lemon water near her head and sighed. “So what’s been with you this past week? You’ve seemed kind of… sedate. Like someone upped your meds.”

At least
someone
noticed there was something different about me.

“I’m okay,” Emma answered. “Just tired. School always makes me want to hibernate.”

“Well, wake up, baby bear.” Madeline pointed at her mock-accusingly. “Your public will be very disappointed in you if you’re not a rock star for your birthday. And by your public, I mean me.”

“I’ll try not to disappoint,” Emma giggled.

Steam billowed into their faces, smelling vaguely sulfuric. Someone’s shadowy head passed by the frosted-glass doors. Then Emma took a deep breath.
Here goes.
“If anyone’s been acting like they’ve had a med change, it’s Charlotte. Don’t you think?”